Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a little salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don't say you weren't warned. By the way, this blog's name is
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Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a little salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don't say you weren't warned. By the way, this blog's name is inspired by the Will Rogers quote, \x34All politics is applesauce.\x34 In 41 years as a print and broadcast journalist, most of those years with the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, Pat has covered national politics under eight American presidents. He's attended 10 national political conventions, Republican and Democratic alike, and has interviewed countless prominent political players, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

Is there something about budget showdowns that gradually but relentlessly lowers the collective IQ of Beltway pundits? Examples abound. For example, we’ve recently seen a whole spate of folks pretending that all our problems could be solved if only President Obama somehow just unleashed his presidential superpowers and made Congress pass a reasonable long-term deficit plan. Jessica Yellin gave us the nutshell version of this last week when she asked Obama, “Couldn’t you just have them down here and refuse to let them leave the room until you have a deal?”